Text Version


     The facts, when they came out, prove that the hospital
 
orderly had not been attempting to escape. He was an Army enlisted
 
man, and he had been digging camotes just outside the hospital
 
stockade, and almost directly underneath a Jap sentry tower. The
 
camores were to be added to the sparse diet of rice and thin soup
 
rationed to the hospital patients.
 
     As it was an extremely hot day, this hospital orderly--
 
a man named MeFee--called inside the stockade and asked a buddy
 
to toss over a canteen of water. McFee's buddy complied.
 
            McFee was about to drink from the canteen when the Jap
 
guard in the sentry tower suddenly yelled at him. Wondering at
 
the commotion,  and not understanding the words being shouted at
 
him, McFee tilted the canteen and spilled some of the liquid to
 
show the Japanese that it was nothing more than water. That was
 
McFee's mistake, although we were never able to find out just why.
 
     The Jap guard shouted again and then flung up his rifle
 
and pulled the trigger. The bullet entered at the junction of the neck
 
 and shoulder and came out through the hip.
 
     McFee yelled out, as he staggered, "My God--don't shoot
 
me again."
 
     The sentry poured two more bullets into McFee's body,
 
and then fired the remaining shots in his clip at McFee's buddy
 
.
 
inside the hospital compound, and who by this time was running for
 
dear life for the safety of the barracks. This second man was not
 
hit.
 
                                              - 78 -
 
 
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